Athens clergy question police, sheriff about their cooperation with ICE

The Interfaith Clergy Partnership of Greater Athens held a special meeting on Tuesday to better understand how new federal and state immigration laws may affect their congregations and the Athens community as a whole.

ACC Police Department Chief Jerry Saulters and ACC Sheriff John Q Williams took questions for about an hour on local law enforcement procedure and how it has changed recently due to new laws like the Laken Riley Act (S.5) and the Georgia Criminal Alien Track and Report Act of 2024 (HB 1105).

As a local law enforcement agency, the ACC Police Department is not responsible for enforcing federal immigration laws and has generally not cooperated with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the past. Similarly, the ACC Sheriff’s Office stopped cooperating with ICE in 2018 when it became clear that doing so was a potential violation of the 4th Amendment rights of Athens residents.

ICE often asks sheriffs to detain undocumented immigrants in jail for up to 48 hours after they would normally be released. ICE makes these requests to give their agents time to travel to the jail in question so they can take the immigrant into federal custody, although they often fail to show up due to a lack of available agents. These detainment requests are entirely voluntary in most states and can even be illegal to comply with in some cases if the request is not accompanied by a warrant.

When he became sheriff in 2021, Williams continued the non-cooperation policy of his predecessor and refused to violate the human rights of undocumented immigrants even if requested by federal immigration police.

“Last I checked, the Constitution applies. It’s the law of the land, not the law of where you were born,” Williams told clergy members on Tuesday. “If you’re here in America, I’m going to treat you like an American.”

However, Governor Brian Kemp and the Georgia legislature took discretion away from local sheriffs on immigration matters last year with HB 1105.

A shifting legal landscape

The Georgia Criminal Alien Track and Report Act of 2024 requires sheriffs across Georgia to verify the immigration status of those taken into custody and to report this information to ICE and the US Department of Homeland Security. It also requires that sheriffs comply with ICE detainer requests and treat these documents as if they were actual warrants issued by a judge.

“If someone commits a crime and they are brought to jail, there are certain queries we [now] have to run,” Williams said. “We don’t have any type of discretion. There is no question about Constitutionality. The law says that if ICE issues a detainer, that’s the same thing that would have been a warrant in the past.”

While Williams is sworn to uphold these new laws, it was clear that he doesn’t fully agree with them. In his comments, he emphasized that his office remains focused on serving the needs of the entire community, not on doing the work of federal immigration police.

“We don’t work for ICE except to the extent that we have to follow the law and cooperate with them on certain things…We are not federal agents, that’s not what our focus is. It’s about the community,” Williams said. “Anywhere we can err on the side of humanity, that’s what we do. If we do have that discretion, that’s what we do.”

Police procedure

Similarly, Saulters told clergy members that the ACC Police Department does not perform immigration raids.

“Unless you’ve committed a crime, or there’s probable cause, we’re not checking people’s [immigration] status as a police department,” Saulters said.

Still, he admits that HB 1105 has changed the way the police department operates in Athens. ACCPD is now forced to gather information on undocumented immigrants and to take them into custody when a police officer believes they have probable cause that a crime has been committed.

Today, something as minor as shoplifting or driving without a license could cause someone to be deported.

Traffic offenses are particularly relevant to undocumented immigrants because these community members are not allowed to apply for a driver’s license in Georgia. Currently, if an ACC police officer pulls someone over for a traffic offense and finds that they are driving without a license, the officer must attempt to verify the driver’s immigration status. If the driver is undocumented, the officer must inform ICE and wait at least 20 minutes for ICE to respond before letting them go.

If ICE replies within the 20 minute timeframe, the officer is required to take them to jail. ICE could then issue a detainer request to keep them behind bars for up to 48 hours so they can be picked up and later deported.

If ICE does not respond during the traffic stop, the police officer will log the interaction in a database which is accessible to ICE and Homeland Security. The data would then be available to these agencies as they plan future immigration raids.

ACC police officers must go through this process for all individuals they believe have committed a fingerprintable offense, as long as they have probable cause, including offenses like driving without a license and shoplifting.

In this way, the state legislature has turned local police and sheriffs’ offices across the state into accessories of federal immigration agents.

ICE activity in Athens

During their opening remarks, Saulters and Williams attempted to reassure the audience that, despite the rumors that have been flying around social media, ICE does not have a strong presence in Athens at the moment.

“There’s a lot of rumors…but there’s also some people who would act to just put fear out there. Some of the things that you hear might be written somewhere, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually happening,” Williams said. “There are not enough boots on the ground to do what [the Trump] administration is saying they are going to do.”

“I’m hearing, ‘hey, there’s a bus over here grabbing people!’ and I call the sheriff and the sheriff’s like, ‘Nobody’s in my jail, I haven’t heard anything,’” Saulters said. “So while we’re hearing these rumors, these are not happening, these are not factual.”

However, Saulters admitted that ICE is no longer informing his agency of their activities in Athens as they had in the past.

“I don’t think we’re getting notified anymore. The last time we were notified that ICE was in our community and operating was in April of last year,” Saulters said. “In other communities where ICE is operating, the local agencies are not being contacted [either].”

Saulters also told the audience that he believes ICE is currently only going after those with a criminal record, but this may not be fully accurate. Beto Mendoza, coordinator of the Athens Immigrant Rights Coalition, told APN that an immigrant mother living in Athens who was seeking asylum was recently taken by ICE and deported. Mendoza does not believe she was involved in any criminal activity.

“ICE is not deporting only dangerous criminals, that is only a narrative used to dehumanize migrants for political reasons,” Mendoza said.

While there is significant risk, Athens community members should resist giving in to fear. When any part of the Athens community stops helping police in their investigations, for example, the entire community becomes more vulnerable to crime.

“The mass deportations and new laws against immigrants are putting at risk every one in Athens,” Mendoza said. “Migrants are vulnerable because they don’t want to have any interaction with police. People take advantage of it, they become easy targets for assault, extortion, wage theft and they will not trust the police, but police need their cooperation when migrants are witnesses of a crime.”

It bears repeating that local police will not check anyone’s immigration status unless probable cause exists that they have committed a crime.

The meeting was moderated by Chaplain Cole Knapper, co-chair of the Interfaith Clergy Partnership of Greater Athens. It was held at Ebenezer West Baptist Church on Chase Street.

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